From fake protesters to scaring the crap out of your mom, EA has cut loose with some, shall we say, odd marketing choices of late. Oh sure, there’s no such thing as bad press and EA’s games certainly aren’t hurting for attention but irking the people who actually buy your games in addition to the people who routinely lambast them might not be the best move.

The fine folks of The Escapists’ Extra Credits show agree and go so far as to say that EA is holding the game industry and the medium as a whole back with its antics. Give the video a gander and see if you agree.

How is this not EA's fault. They hired the marketing company and they approved the marketing plan that said company came up with. No one hires a marketing company and lets them have free range to do whatever they want.

Frankly when I saw the Dead Space 2 commerical I said out loud "Thanks EA for keeping the stereotype alive."

In EA's defense, the whole fake protest thing was not their idea. They hired a marketing company that did it. Now, EA could have kaiboshed it a lot quicker than they did, but it still was not entirely their fault.

Sadly, even if EA sees this, I have a feeling it will fall on deaf ears.

Like the EC guys, I remember too that mission statement from way back in those early days. But I chalk that up as being the product of youg idealism, much like the young Charles Foster Kane and his "Declaration of Principles." And like Kane, as EA grew and eventually became the bloated entity that it is now (and which happens to all business unfortunately, no matter how good-intentioned they start out as being), those ideals and principles fell by the wayside in the face of the reality of how a capitialistic society works. So as much as the EC guys and other would like those days to return, I sincerely doubt they ever will.

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ZippyDSMlee: .....win8 hates any left over hidden install partitions from other version of windows....only waste 5 hours finding that out...its ahrder than you think keeping up with 4 or 5 HDDS......03/03/2015 - 4:44am

Matthew Wilson: I am going to pax east, any games you guys want me to check out?03/02/2015 - 11:23pm

ZippyDSMlee: No one remembers the days of Cinemagic and Cynergy eh? :P, meh even MGS is getting to film like....03/02/2015 - 8:44pm

MechaTama31: I was about to get all defensive about liking Metal Gear Solid, but then I saw that he was talking about "cinematic" as a euphemism for "crappy framerate".03/02/2015 - 8:29pm

prh99: Just replace cinematic with the appropriate synonym for poo and you'll have gist of any press release.03/02/2015 - 5:34pm

Monte: Though from a business side, i would agree with the article. While it would be smarter for developers to slow down, you can't expect EA, Activision or ubisoft to do something like that. Nintnedo's gotta get the third party back.02/28/2015 - 4:36pm

Monte: Though it does also help that nintendo's more colorful style is a lot less reliant on graphics than more realistic games. Wind Waker is over 10 years old and still looks good for its age.02/28/2015 - 4:33pm

Monte: With the Wii, nintnedo had the right idea. Hold back on shiny graphics and focus on the gameplay experience. Unfortunatly everyone else keeps pushing for newer graphics and it matters less and less each generation. I can barely notice the difference02/28/2015 - 4:29pm

Monte: ON third party developers; i kinda think they should slow down to nintendo's pace. They bemoan the rising costs of AAA gaming, but then constantly push for the best graphics which is makes up a lot of those costs. Be easier to afford if they held back02/28/2015 - 4:27pm

Matthew Wilson: http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/02/28/the-world-is-nintendos-if-only-theyd-take-it/ I think this is a interesting op-ed, but yeah it kind of is stating the obvious.02/28/2015 - 2:52pm